We have been busy bees recently. I put some of our wedding present vouchers to very good use and invested in a beautiful Candy Apple Kitchenaid Mixer. I have christened her Joni and she has already proven her weight in gold.

Introducing Joni my candy apple buttercream dream making machine

My 30th birthday was approaching fast and wanting to mark the occasion my friend Jill (who’s birthday just so happens to be the day before mine!) and I decided to have a little soiree at our local pub. Cupcakes seemed to be a good option for a gathering, so we didn’t have to worry about plates, knives and such like. It also meant that we could go a bit mad with the flavour combinations too.

On my actual birthday! What a lucky birthday girl I am with 2 surprise birthday cakes from my mam and my sister. We’re not going to go hungry. EVER.

The week before our birthdays, Jill and I spent a merry evening baking everything in sight. Modifying Hummingbird Bakery recipes to our hearts content. It’s amazing what can be achieved in 3 hours by two 29 year old girls, armed with a Kitchenaid and a bottle of prosecco. We got very creative indeed.

How many cupcakes can 2 girls make in less than 3 hours whilst drinking a bottle of fizz?? There’s still more in the oven…

We baked well over 100 cakes and still made it to the pub afterwards to meet our husbands. I must admit we sampled rather a few along the way so not all of the cakes made it into our freezers to await their icing. It’s hard to resist when you’ve got cupcakes hot out of the oven dancing in front of your eyes.

The beginnings of Pina Colada Bundt cakes from a genuinely German Gugelhupf tin! Soaking in white rum syrup

The following week we defrosted our cupcakes and spent an entire day icing the lot, with lashings of buttercream, glitter and ganache. The results were very well received by our friends and the bar staff! The Jasmine green tea cupcakes were a surprise success after I accidentally emptied the entire bottle of Jasmine Extract into the cupcake batter… They are the most fragrant cupcakes I’ve ever created. Perhaps an acquired taste for some and definitely an excellent air freshener accessory.

Amaretto and Coconut Snowball cupcakes – my personal favourite. I shall be rolling many more cakes in coconut in the future

I’m not entirely sure if this is the scientific way to create your own recipes but it seems to work for me. My basic understanding of creative baking is to find a recipe that works for you then add and subtract from it. Experiment to the extreme! My general guidelines are

Don’t alter the specified oven temperature (unless you have to because you’re using a fan/non fan oven) cupcakes bake at around 170-180 degrees Celsius and should take about 20 minutes depending on the size of your cases

Maintain the combination of wet to dry ingredients

Use whatever is in your cupboards

Feel free to double the quantities if you need to bake lots but be prepared to bake them in stages

Naked cupcakes freeze really well and can keep for a month. Freeze them as soon as they’re cooled in freezer bags/Tupperware and this holds all of the moisture in sponge. Leaving you with a wonderfully moist cupcake when you choose to ice it later on.

You normally need more buttercream than you think so again feel free to make a double batch!

The more you beat buttercream the better it is.

Feel free to experiment with shapes if you have a Madeleine tin, Gugelhupf or mini bunt tin they work really well too

A squiggle of melted chocolate works wonders if you can’t be bothed to whip up buttercream to top your cakes and a sprinkle of coconut and glitter hides a multitude of sins

The Basic Cupcake Recipe

Makes 12-16 cupcakes (using cupcake not muffin sized cases)

For the sponge:
Rub together (using an electric whisk if you have one) the sugar, butter, flour salt and baking powder. When it all looks quite sandy beat in the wet ingredients including your choice of flavouring!

Then pour the smooth liquid batter into prepared cupcake cases in a muffin tin.
Bake for 20-25 minutes in the centre of the oven at 170 degrees celsius until golden brown and springs back when pressed. To be extra certain they’re cooked insert a cocktail stick and if it comes out clean it’s definitely done.

The Basic Cupcake Sponge Ingredients

120g (4½oz) plain flour

140g (5oz/) caster sugar

1½ tsp baking powder

A pinch of salt

40g (1½oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

120ml (4½floz) milk

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

Cupcake Roulette!
Choose from an array of flavour combinations such as

Replace caster sugar with vanilla flavoured sugar (if you have pre-prepared some but if not don’t worry!)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Amaretto

Replace 40ml of milk with amaretto

You can also add almond extract for extra oomph

Amaretto Sour

Replace 40ml of milk with amaretto

Add 1 tsp lemon extract

Add zest of one lemon

Coconut

Replace 25g of flour with desiccated coconut

Use coconut milk instead of normal milk

Chocolate

Replace 20g of flour with cocoa powder

Lavender

Steep the milk in 1 tbs of dried lavender flowers overnight

Infuse the sugar with 2tbs of dried lavender flowers for a week

Sieve the lavender petals out of the sugar and milk before use

Blitz 1 tsp of lavender into the sugar before use

Rose

same as lavender but using dried rose petals

Replace 1 tbs of milk with rose water

Piña Colada

Replace 40ml of milk with Malibu

Replace 25 g of flour with desiccated coconut

Use coconut milk instead of milk

(soak cupcakes in rum syrup whilst still warm)

Chocolate Brandy

Replace 40ml of milk with brandy

Replace 20g flour with cocoa powder

Orange

Use orange extract instead of vanilla

Add orange zest

The possibilities are endless! Create your own flavour combinations!!

You could choose your own favourite liquor, (Gin?) cordial (sasparilla, blackcurrant), extract (Orange Blossom, violet), and just follow this idea. I’m very tempted to create some Brandy Alexander cocktail cupcakes very soon…

Then to choose your topping to enhance your flavour combination even further…

The Basic Buttercream Recipe
Depending on your style of icing you may want to double the quantities of buttercream. Piping swirls and roses uses a lot more icing than creating a palette knife swirl.

25 ml milk

250g icing sugar

80g unsalted butter, softened

Icing Flavour Options

Vanilla

1 tsp vanilla extract

Amaretto Sour

Replace 25 ml milk with amaretto

1 tsp lemon extract

Zest of 1 lemon

Coconut

use coconut milk

Peppermint

Use 1 tsp peppermint extract

The General Buttercream Guidelines

You can see here the rules are simple. Add whatever flavour extracts you like. Substitute milk for liquid or boozy flavourings. Zests are good to add as they are dry so won’t effect the consistency of the buttercream. If your icing is looking a bit sloppy beat in some more icing sugar and return it to the fridge to set a bit if it’s too runny.

Use a piping bag and star shaped nozzle to pipe swirls, Mr Whippy peaks, stars or roses onto your cupcakes. Or use a palette knife to smooth a swirl of buttercream onto your cakes.

Syrup

If you would like extra moist cakes you can add a syrup to the sponge whilst it’s still warm.

Tropical White Rum Syrup

200ml white rum

60g sugar

Warm the sugar and rum in a pan over a low heat. Simmer it until it’s reduced by half in volume. Once cooled pour over your cakes. Allow it to soak in before icing your cakes. Feel free to use other flavours too! Lemon juice, rose water, cordial etc make a really good syrup!

Colourings

Using a cocktail stick add a couple of drops of your food colour gel of choice and beat until its fully incorporated. You can always add more if needed.

If you want to swirl 2 colours together, split your buttercream in half. Colour each half whatever you fancy. Pipe one colour buttercream down one side of a piping bag and then pipe the different colour down the other side of the bag. You will then get a lovely swirl of colours on you cupcakes when piping the two colours simultaneously from the same bag!

Chocolate Ganache

Heat up 300ml of double cream to just about boiling

Take it off the heat

Smash up equal amount of dark plain chocolate 300g

Stir the chocolate into the hot cream until completely smooth

Spoon a generous blob onto cupcakes and let gravity do the work to create a smooth level shiny ganache top

You could use white chocolate if you add more white chocolate to the mix as it contains less cocoa solids so it won’t set until there’s more chocolate than cream in the mixture.

In the midst of baking a double batch of Humming Bakery Brownies for the wonderful wedding of Jill and Jonny I got a bit carried away. Desperate to use my new Madeleine pan and the rest of the eggs that I bought I conjured up a milk chocolate version of the classic Hummingbird Brownie .

I’m not entirely sure that a Madeleine pan is intended for Brownie usage however I can recommend giving it a good go! What is baking if not a bit of experimenting with unexpected cake shapes? If you’re looking for an odd adaptation of something special I’m your gal.

My little mint plant was looking at me from the window sill so I decided to grab as many leaves as possible, chop them up finely and throw them into the mix. I substituted the dark green and blacks chocolate for a good quality milk chocolate and omitted adding additional chocolate chips to give a smoother finish. An extra slosh of peppermint extract for good luck and I spooned the shiny mix into my pre greased Madeleine pan. Carefully filling the pan only 2 thirds full so to avoid overspill. The tray needed a good wipe too before heading into the oven due to a lot of Brownie dribbling all over.

The recipe was enough for 12 Madeleine and 12 cupcake brownies too! (I used a plastic freezer bag with the corner snipped off to pipe the mixture into cupcake cases, which was far less messy!)

I baked them for 15 to 20 minutes at 175 degrees, until the skewer comes out clean, et voila!

They had to cool completely in the pan before attempting to coax them out with a knife. Even then I had to bang the tray on the table a few times as a few were a bit overly attached to the pan. Some of the brownies left a little piece of themselves stuck to the pan but I don’t mind eating the holey brownies! The fully intact mint Madeleine brownies were then wrapped up and whisked away to join in the wedding day celebrations!

I love the shape and the gooeyness of these brownies. The milk chocolate means they’re much sweeter than the normal Hummingbird variety, so probably stick with dark chocolate if you prefer a richer flavour but add more mint! :)

I’m also entering my Mint Madeleine Brownies intothe April AlphaBakes Challenge. Under the letter ‘B’ for Brownies. :) The challenge is hosted by The More Than Occasional Baker and Carolinemakes Hop on over to @Bakingaddicts and @Caroline_Makes blogs for more information on the challenge and how you can take part too. :)

I’m baking a little something for my friends’ wedding day. Something that can be piled high and shared. I have baked rather a few Hummingbird Bakery things now from America but this is definitely my favourite brownie recipe. Nevertheless I still wanted to do a trial run to make sure they work (and taste good). When better to try them than at Jill’s hen weekend, this weekend.

The trial run went so well Chris requested a second batch! These Hummingbird Bakery Chocolate Brownies are rich, sweet and chewy with a delicate crumbly top. Perfect with a strong cup of coffee. A good sugar boost too to keep those energy levels up for wedding dancefloor action.

This recipe is so quick I made the first batch in less time than it took me to ruin two lots of pancake batter. The longest bit was waiting for the chocolate to melt.

I love how this recipe requires no whisking or sifting. Simply stirring everything in one bowl with a wooden spoon means hardly any washing up too! You couldn’t even whip these up and freeze them for brownie emergencies.

The entire brownie

1. Melt 200 grams of good quality dark chocolate in a bain marie along with 175 grams of butter.
2. Make a cup of tea while this melts gently over a low heat.
3. Once melted stir in 325grams of sugar until it’s all combined.
4. Then stir in 125grams if plain flour.
5. Stir in 3 largest eggs until you have a smooth paste.
6. For extra decadence stir in some chunks of chocolate. I used more dark chocolate. (Whatever amount was left in the cupboard probably about 50grams but I reckon the more chocolate the better as you get gorgeous melty chocolate surprises when you bite in to the brownies.)
7. Pour all the gooey batter into a rectangular baking tin about 23cm by 13cm
8. Bake for 30 mins at 175 degrees
9. Try to wait (if you can resist tucking into the tray with a spoon) until its cooled to chop it up and eat it as it tends to fall apart while it’s still warm… But this might be a good thing especially if you’re eating it with ice cream!

Enjoy!

Piles of Brownies

This recipe is supposed to be for 12 portions but I chopped it into smaller triangles and made about 30 servings.

Ok, ok I’ve baked rather a few things already from good old England so it may not be that exotic to choose a Traditional Victoria Sponge. However! I know a true test of baking skill lies in the creation of a perfect sponge. I’ve never made one of these before but I sure have eaten my fair share of them. I have pondered over baking a layered cake for quite some time and debated over experimenting with a Hummingbird Bakery venture delicious although it would have been it involved too many ingredients that I couldn’t find so back to Marguerite Patten! Always wanting to try something a little bit different, and having rather a lot of home made lemon curd still to use up, I made mine a triple lemon triple layered Victoria Sponge…

The Marguerite Patten recipe for Victoria Sponge has so many variations I think you need a Home Economics degree to put it all together! After engaging my non mathematical brain I managed to measure out in ounces (reading my scales correctly this time- I recently realised that I’ve been reading Llbs instead of ounces… This may explain why my last sponge cake went SO very wrong…)

The Many Variations of Marguerite

I used the variation for one 10 inch cake tin, the plan being that I would simply split my one cake in half and fill it with buttercream and my lemon curd.

Whisking the eggs well

As I was making probably the biggest cake in Marguerite’s recipe options I had to increase all the ingredients from 4oz to 6oz. Simple?

Creaming the butter, sugar and lemon zest together

I simplified the method for myself: 6oz of butter and 6 of sugar creamed together. 2 medium eggs to be whisked ‘well’. 2 lemons zest and half a lemons juice added to the butter then beat the eggs gradually into the butter being careful not to curdle the lot.

Scrambled eggs?

Then to fold in the 6oz of plain flour and ta da we have a cake mix!

Folding in the flour

Careful not to knock the air out of the mixture I lovingly spread it as flat as I could get it into the greased and lined tin. 35minutes at 180 degrees and I had one slightly thinner than I expected lemon sponge.

Spread as even as possible in the tin

One slightly sad looking thin lemon sponge

This rather sad looking sponge would be impossible split down the middle and ice. So I just had to bake another 2 layers!! It would have been a bit of a disappointing cake had I not. To speed up the process I doubled the ingredients to make enough for 2 cakes in one go. I wasn’t entirely sure this was technically the best thing to do but hey I didn’t want to be on all night. The problem being I only have one round cake tin so I had to bake one sponge at a time in order to re use the tin. This meant cooling the cake quickly and hoping the last sponge wouldn’t be airless and dry after the sponge mix had sat around waiting to be plopped into the tin.

Citrus buttercream

Throwing an unmeasured amount of butter and icing sugar into the food processor, (probably around 1 and a half packs of butter and enough icing sugar to make a good smooth sweet texture) I whizzed it all up with a splash of orange extract and vanilla too. I ran out of lemons by this point so thought any citrus would be a good move…

I am not very good at icing cakes with buttercream. My cupcakes always look a bit sad so this was a bit of a trial by fire. I’ve watched Lorraine Pascale ice cakes and it looks easy so I do what I do best and make it up as I go along. Lorraine made a mint sugar syrup and spread it on to her layered sponge cakes before icing, so I thought this must be a good idea although it did mean deviating from Marguerite’s recipe somewhat.

Lemon Syrup

Using what I had left over from the sponges I simmered the juice from all of the zested lemons with some sugar (enough to cover the bottom of the pan) to make a lemon drizzle. When it and the cakes had cooled slightly I spread a generous sticky coating on all 3 sponge layers to add to the lemony flavour and to help keep it moist.

The Terrible Trio

The exciting bit was then whacking on a thick layer of lemon curd followed by buttercream then smushing on a sponge layer (and it cracked slightly but no one will see this once I coat the entire thing in buttercream. The problem was the lemon curd started to dribble out everywhere! For the second layer I put buttercream first then lemon curd which helped hold it in place a bit better.

Layer 1! Lashings of Buttercream

Layer 2. I could stop here for a traditional Victoria Sponge…

Lemon Curding it up

Layer 3! Looking a bit rustic

It was looking enormous and slightly lopsided. I had obviously not spread the buttercream evenly but the leaning tower of Pisa look is so in right now (I tell myself). Once the third sponge layer was added I spread the remaining butter cream, around the sides of the cake, sealing all 3 layers in. Smoothing the cream round with a palette knife. I saved a little buttercream to finish it off after the entire cake had a little rest in the fridge to ‘set’.

All 3 leaning layers encased in buttercream

The cake was so massive I had to take some shelves out of the fridge just to squeeze it in! Once I smoothed on the final finishing touches of buttercream in an attempt to hide some of the crumbs that had broken off the sponges and worked their way into the cream I faced a little challenge. How to cover the leaning tower of cake up to keep it fresh in the fridge?! It was too big for any of my cake boxes and I had welded it to my glass cake stand with buttercream so it wasn’t possible to move it.

Cake Tent

I fashioned a rudimentary cake tent by selotaping cocktail sticks underneath the glass cake stand and gently folding 2 sheets of tin foil around the cake and skewering them onto the sticks. The cocktail sticks meant the tin foil didn’t touch the buttercream but would stop it all drying out in the fridge. Perfect!

Triple Lemon, Triple Layer Victoria Sponge

Once you start you can’t stop

This cake was immense!! I loved the sharp lemon flavour of the Curd combined with the gentle citrus buttercream. The sponge was probably a bit dry around the edges (hence the loose crumbs) so I would probably take it out the oven a little sooner if I was making it again. But hey for a first attempt at a layered cake I was happy. The tilt definitely gives it a certain je nais sais quais. I enjoyed the quirky take on the traditional Victoria Sponge. I took some to work and one comment was “that is the best cake that I have ever tasted’ which is high praise indeed!

Thank you so much to lauralovescakes for tagging me in the Food Bloggers Unplugged game and also to Sharyn from The Kale Chronicles for kindly nominating me for the Versatile Blogger Award!

This means I get to share a little bit more about myself with you and then tag some of my other favourite bloggers to tell us a little more about themselves and their inspiration too.

So where to start? For the Versatile Blogger Award I am supposed to reveal 7 little known things about myself and tag 10 other bloggers, but I realised that I could answer the 10 questions from Food Bloggers Unplugged and thereby reveal more. (Hope that makes sense!)

1. What, or who inspired you to start a blog?

I’m not entirely sure where it came from to be honest. I hadn’t even read a lot of blogs before I started blogging myself. I had however watched Julia and Julia and loved it. Then out of the blue one day the idea of baking my way around the world in eighty bakes hit me whilst on my way to work and I downloaded the wordpress app on my phone and that was that.

2. Who is your foodie inspiration?

Oh so many! I just found out that my great grandma worked as a baker so I guess its been in the family for quite some time now, but I have always enjoyed baking. I baked with my mam as a child and have carried on since then. I do seem to have amassed rather a lot of cook books now too ranging from Marguerite Patten, Mary Berry, Delia, Nigella, The Hummingbird Bakery and a few more!

3. Your greasiest, batter – splattered food/drink book is?

Most definitely my mam’s copy of Marguerite Patten’s Everyday Cooking, although I seem to spill something on every book as soon as they enter the kitchen. I quite like it when they have medals of honour on them, with a splash of batter here and a stripe of food colouring there. Each stain is a memory of baking something lovely.

4. Tell us all about the best thing you have ever eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?

Dear me. This is tough. I’ve eaten lots of amazing meals in a few countries but one thing that stands out is Dim Sum in Hong Kong, or grilled eel in Japan, or the fresh fish we had in Fiji, so dense it was more like meat. (I have no idea what type of fish it was but the guys on the island had just caught it that day.)

5. Another food bloggers table you’d like to eat at is?

I would love to dine at quite a few of my fellow food bloggers tables. I’m often disguising a rumbling tummy as I read their posts! I think Urvashi (The Botanical Baker) makes wonderful food, I’m still thinking about her chilli chocolate loaf and also Sharyn (The Kale Chronicles) cooks lots of healthy and wholesome things! I’d love to try her sour dough bread! or She Cooks and He Eats makes a mean full of meat lasagne! I would love to eat with my friend Julie in Australia who is baking up a storm at Sweetgum Bakery.

6. What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

Santa has been and gone and I got a lovely Kenwood Food Processor :)

7. Who taught you how to cook?

My mam definitely taught me a lot and then I’ve improvised my way through a few books since, especially now I’m baking so many different things. I’m suprised I’ve only set the kitchen on fire once so far to be honest…

8. I’m coming to you for dinner what’s your signature dish?

If I’m making something savoury I will probably throw together what ever I put my hands on from the cupboard and make it up as I go along. Whenever I try to follow a recipe it goes horribly wrong (don’t ever mention the spicy lentil roasted butternut squash). So it would probably be a big bowl of miso ramen with chicken and chilli, lime and corriander. Or a chickpea curry with sweet potato and puy lentils. Or if all else fails turkey, mashed potato and baked beans :) Then for the grand finale it would have to be something that is a little challenging that I’m still yet to attempt, perhaps a mousse cake or genoise sponge or profiteroles.

9. What is your guilty food pleasure?

Ummm see above… turkey, mashed potato and baked beans! The best boxing day tradition EVER. Try it if you don’t believe me. It’s even better if you mash up some carrots and turnip too.

10. Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

Hmmm I was thrown out of guitar lessons when I was 14 and told never to come back. Apparently I didn’t take it seriously enough, but then again I did arrive with a mini guitar, with only 1 string attached. I still cannot read music or play any musical instrument.

Finally…tag 5 other food bloggers with these questions…like a hot baked potato…pass it on!

I would like to tag some of my favourite bloggers who share amazing food and bakes. I lvoe reading their blogs and definitely recommend checking them out.

There seems to be a pattern emerging here. It was my friend Jenny’s birthday and I wanted to bake something special for her. When I asked what she would like her immediate response was ‘Key Lime Pie’. Your wish is my command.

I’ve never had Key Lime Pie before but I immediately thought of the Hummingbird Bakeryrecipe that I had gazed at longingly many a time but had thought it was too complicated and messy to attempt. I would not let my niggling doubts defeat me.

I knew that I would need a bit of time to prepare this one in order to bring it to work to celebrate Jenny’s birthday in style. I got up extra early the day before to smash up digestive biscuits. It’s days like these that I wish I had a food processor. Chris had to ask me nicely to stop hammering the biscuits with the rolling pin as it was simply too early. I ran out of digestives and supplemented the rest with rich teas instead. (that’s ok right?!)

Smashing Digestives

Again I had to shield my eyes from the flying digestive debris when I blitzed the shards with the hand blender. I may, or may not, have gone to work with crumbs in my hair. (It’s hard to tell with my curly mop sometimes).

I melted the butter in the microwave successfully not causing any fireworks this time and quickly stirred it all together. I quickly realised as I attempted to press the buttery biscuit paste into my flan dish that if I used all of the biscuits as instructed in the recipe that there simply wouldn’t be any space for limes in the pie…

Can't fit any more biscuits in!

I had felt a bit guilty and frivoulous for buying mini pie dishes recently, but this Key Lime Pie emergency meant that I got to christen them! My sleepy brain missed a step in the recipe which said you bake the biscuit base and I assumed they would need to set in the fridge (hence the extra early preparations). Into the fridge they went to wait for me upon my return from work.

Mini Tins

I realised that I had to bake the base and cool it before the lime filling could be poured in. No baking beans needed for this inital bake unlike the Tarte au Citron.

Ready for round 2. Into the oven...

The grating and juicing of the limes was intense and made me crave a mojito. Once it was all grated I whisked it into the lashings of condensed milk and egg yolks, which I lovingly separated from their whites to save for the magnificent meringue.

A lot of limes went into the making of this.

and eggs :)

Then to pour the limey goodness onto the biscuit base which was now a thick greenish creamy paste and bake it in the oven. The lack of light in my oven could pose a problem for checking the bake, but I’ve lived with it for over 2 years now and found a torch is a handy cooking tool.

Ready for round 2. Into the oven...

Who needs a light inside their oven? Torches are the way forward. Is it done yet?

Now for the exciting bit. I’ve never made Italian style meringue before. (and only made normal meringue for the first time recently!) I saw it on the Great British Bake Off being created very precisely with thermometers and such like. If you’ve read any of my blog you will know by now that I simply don’t do precise, so I was relieved that a thermometer was not needed in this recipe. The only thermometer I own is a forehead strip one that I bought during the Swine Flu Panic last year. Somehow I don’t think I could use that to measure the temperature of sugar syrup…

Frothy egg whites (Before sugar)

8 egg whites were whisked into a frothy frenzy whilst the sugar and water bubbled merrily on the stove. I couldn’t remember if you were supposed to stir sugar constantly or if it makes it return to it’s crystallised state, so I did a bit of both. Stir, let it bubble, stir again. It eventually reached what I assumed to be the ‘soft ball stage‘. A mystical sugary state that frankly I’ve never heard of before I attempted to make fudge the other week, which was a disaster, so I clearly can’t recognise this stage of sugary wonderment. To be on the safe side I let it bubble some more..

Sugar Soup?

Bubblin Hot

When the sugar is syrupy and hot enough it needs to be poured slowly into the egg whites whilst whisking it. It’s a good job I can multi task, as I poured the liquid molten lava with one hand and held the electric whisk with the other, praying I wouldn’t slip and scald myself. When I win the lottery I have promised myself a Kitchen Aid mixer (and a bigger kitchen).

After sugar... I think the meringue's cooked!

I think I may need a bigger bowl if I’m ever going to make this again. It was amazing. Compared to uncooked meringue this was like magic. It quadrupled in size and almost over flowed the bowl! The only downside was after all the sugar was incorporated was that it involved 15 – 20 minutes of more whisking. Thank god for my little electric whisk and my ipod on random. Elvis and whisking. What can be better?

A mini one

Once the meringue had cooled, it was cooked through and ready to be assembled on top of the lime pies. It was a sticky process. With each mountain of meringue in position I popped them all in the oven for the final bake!

The Key Lime Pie Family Portrait

What a wonderful sight! So impressive! I struggled to get the pie into my cake box to transport to work. So cling wrapped it to the hilt and carried it like a baby. I got A LOT of smiles from strangers on my way to work that morning! Someone actually offered me their seat on the metro. It just goes to show people LOVE cake and Key Lime Pie is an attractive bake.

The grand reveal (somehow pearls of toffee appeared from the meringue, I know not how or why but they look pretty.)

This pie goes a long way. We shared it amongst 11 people and then I still had 3 mini pies at home! (don’t worry I didn’t eat them all by myself) The wonderfully sweet meringue balanced out the sharp and creamy lime. The digestive base tasted almost gingery after their third bake in the oven. Perhaps it was the addition of rich tea biscuits, whatever it was, it was wonderful.

After watching the Baked Cheesecake GBBOepisode I was aware of how tricky this would be. But I’m still dreaming about Jo’s Rum and Raisin Cheesecake! I was a little surprised in the supermarket when purchasing all the cream cheese needed for this one… 4 packets of cheese seems like a lot!!

Beacoup de Cream Cheese

I decided to improvise with the biscuits as I already had rich tea in the house rather than buy digestives. That won’t make too much of a difference right?

Biscuity Base

I must admit I was in a little bit of a hurry when putting this one together and roughly blended rich tea biscuits and cocoa powder into sweet dust which permeated the entire kitchen with my little hand whisk. An emergency tea towel was required to protect my eyes.

I pressed the biscuity mess into my borrowed loose bottomed tin and shoved it the fridge to set.

I threw all the cheese with the melted chocolate into a bowl and whisked it all up then added all the eggs… Using one hand to smash the eggs and one hand to whisk, i ended up with egg shells all over the floor, but an effective method nonetheless.

Thoroughly Whisked

I poured it all into the tin then once again disaster struck. I’m most definitely consistent in one area. My inability to read recipes. Dear Lord, I despair at my own ridiculousness. I realised I hadn’t read to the end of the recipe! I didn’t have a tray big enough to submerge the cake in, in order to bake it in a bath of water. I only had another loose bottomed cake tin which I managed to gently manoeuvre the runny cheesecake into. Upon pouring water into the second tin, I thought I could hear rain. No. It was all the water running out of my cake tin over the electrical items down the back of the kitchen units and onto the floor. BRILLIANT.

I had to abandon the water bath idea and hope that it wouldn’t burn being baking directly in the oven.

Just as I was lifting the precariously full tin unto the oven I had a flash of panic. I’ve forgotten something…. SUGAR! (and also vanilla). How did I forget sugar??!! I was so very lucky to have realised at the very last minute, as this would have been a rather expensive and disgusting cheese and chocolate bake.

not quite oven ready... quick hand me a ladle!!

Quick to rescue yet another failure on my part I grabbed a ladle and scooped the gloopy mixture it of the tin and back into the bowl. A quick whisk of sugar and vanilla and it was time for the oven again.

Oven Ready?

To compensate for the lack of water I turned the oven down to hopefully prevent burning. From watching GBBO I know the cheesecake has to wobble a bit in the middle, but mine just kept wobbling all over. I probably kept it in the oven a bit too long.

The Double Tin Effect - sadly no water (probably should have stopped baking at this point...)

An hour and a half later I had one massive chocolate cheesecake on my hands, albeit with a huge crack down the middle, it looked ok!

Rather than at this point...

It needed a night in the fridge and then it was ready for tasting. It’s definitely rich and creamy. It’s so filling you can only eat a little bit in one go, but I quite like it. The Rich Tea base is actually pretty good too! This feeds about 25 people.

But from this angle (and if you squint a little) the disaster disappears! Magic!

I’ve even purchased some take way pots to deliver take away cheesecake to my friends and family this week. If you’re visiting me this week please beware you will be fed cheesecake and then take some home with you too! Its good to share!